


so can i call you tonight (i'm trying to make up my mind)

by thedreamsteam



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fights, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, im sorry idk what to put
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedreamsteam/pseuds/thedreamsteam
Summary: Adam Parrish isn’t his father. That’s a fact, that anyone who knows him (truly knows him), anyone who truly likes him knows.or, adam isn't his dad and gansey has a problem
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	so can i call you tonight (i'm trying to make up my mind)

**Author's Note:**

> ok 1) this is dedicated to the bluedam supremacists server bc i havent rlly talked BUT i love them but alos to layla bc shes the reason the move after is in this AND jamie bc she got me into trc  
> 2) this took 2 months to write but i only write for like 10 days out of that  
> 3) ive watched the move after. please never watch it the only good part is the soundtrack
> 
> i started writing this after finishing the last book and then never continued until now oops
> 
> title is can i call u tonight by dayglow

Adam Parrish isn’t his father. That’s a fact, that anyone who knows him (truly knows him), anyone who truly likes him knows. This is a fact that the woman in the grocery store doesn't know, seeing him in line and telling him how much he takes after his father, a fact that the woman who used to be his neighbor across the street doesn’t know when she asks him why doesn’t he stay at his parents home anymore. This is a fact that most people don’t know, but for the people who do, it’s everything they need to know.

He isn’t his father. His father would hit him, punch him, _abuse_ him. His father would never say good things to him, only ever tear him down. His father wasn’t a good person, and he never was. His father would tear people down if it would build himself up. His father tore him down, to feel better about himself, he guesses. His father was a dick, an asshole, an awful human being, something that nobody should ever have to face.

He isn't his father, no matter what. He doesn’t do what his father does, he doesn’t tear down people to build himself up. He helps his friends, always, helping them first. And they help him too.

Blue tells him he’s so kind, much kinder than his father ever was, that she knows if she ever needs help, she can call him and he’ll help as soon as he can, and says this while hugging him. Noah tells him he’s seen him when he thinks he’s alone, and he’s much better than he thinks he is, much stronger than he thinks he is. Ronan has told him (in moments where no one is around, where no one can make fun of Ronan for putting some emotion in his voice) that he’s one of the bravest people he knows, and that he’s the person he would call to ask for help in burying a dead body. Henry told him he’s smart, the smartest person he knows (and that’s saying a lot, since henry knows many people, including Gansey) and clapped him on the shoulder, before leaving. Gansey didn’t say much, only told him one day that he’s the person who he would kill for, and then another day told him that he’d run through wasps if it meant saving Adam.

Adam just isn’t his father. Plain and simple. He isn’t his father, he never will be, and he won’t ever think about this again. Honestly, he doesn’t even know why he’s thinking about this, because-

“Adam! Which movie do you wanna see?” Gansey asks, standing in front of him, with Ronan beside him. He blinks, staring at the two of them.

Honestly, he doesn’t even know, but Ronan is smirking, and he sees him mouth ‘After’ beside him, so he smiles. “I think I wanna see After.”

“Oh god, not you too.” Gansey groans. “No, please, no.”

“Gansey, even Parrish wants to see it! Are you really gonna deny a movie to Adam?” Ronan says, crossing his arms.

“I’m really uncomfortable right now.” Gansey says in response. “I don’t want to watch a porn movie about Harry Styles.”

“For your information, it’s young Voldemort.” Ronan tells him, leaving to use the restroom.

Gansey sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose before turning to face Adam. “Do you really want to see this movie, or are you doing this as an evil plan with Ronan?”

“You really should’ve stopped making me watch things from Monty Python.” Is what Adam tells him, and he watches Gansey’s expression change from confusion to betrayal.

“How dare you. You wound me.” Gansey says, and they step forward to the counter as a bored teenager asks what movie they want tickets for. “Three adult tickets for After, please.” He says it the way he always does when speaking to someone he doesn't know, but Adam can detect a hint of _I hate that I’m buying these tickets as a teenager please stop me_ and he grins. Gansey doesn’t see him do it, but he lightly hits him as he pays.

Ronan comes back when they’re starting into the theater, and so they all enter together, Gansey groaning when he sees the fact that the audience is mostly filled with 14 year old girls, all sat with either their parents or their boyfriends. Afew older girls are there, the same age as them, sat with their girlfriends, and when they notice them, they can clearly see that they’re not there to take the movie seriously either, and one gives a mock salute to them. They nod back, and up they go, until they’re sat near the top.

“You both are horrible.” Gansey says when they’ve sat down, Adam pulling out the coke bottle he hid in his jacket, and Ronan pulling out a pack of candy he brought, but they both know he’s talking about the movie choice and not what they’ve snuck in.

“Don’t make me listen to your shit.” Ronan says, and they bicker until the movie starts, Ronan sitting back with a grin and Gansey sitting back with frown. Adam sits back too, to the left of Gansey, and even though he helped choose the movie, he’s still scared about it too. It can’t be _that_ bad, right?

-

“I’m scarred for _life_ , Ronan.” Gansey says again in the silence of the car, glancing in the rearview mirror to look at Ronan. Adam notices this, but it just gets filed in the back of his mind, his mind just blank at the moment, as he stares out the window. “How’re you holding up, Adam?”

“They.. they _fucked_ , Gansey. They fucked and it was originally a _Harry Styles_ fanfic and that means that in the original thing she cheated on her boyfriend with Harry and had so much sex and it had to of been worse since the movie cut out tons of parts and did she cheat on Niall? Was that originally Niall? Was Niall her boyfriend?” His voice doesn’t sound right, he knows, and his accent is slipping out, but he doesn’t care at this point, because oh _god_. Why did he trust Ronan?

“You scarred Adam, Ronan.” Gansey says, almost scornfully, but not.

The ride is silent after that, only the faint sounds of One Direction playing in the car, a dark reminder for how much they were in the dark on the way to the theater. How in the dark they were from Ronan’s master plan.

“Why was that even PG-13?” Adam finally asks, again, his voice sounding less horrified and more normal. “I’m not even that traumatized now but just. Why?”

“Money.” Ronan says from the backseat, and Gansey nods next to him. Before anyone can say anything else, Ronan speaks up again. “I heard they’re having Dylan Sprouse be in the sequel.”

“WHAT?” Adam and Gansey both yell at the same time, Ronan chuckling in the background. 

“These After movies are just ruining my childhood.” Gansey mutters, seemingly ignoring the music playing out of the speakers now. He looks so sad, and it’d be a funny sight if Adam could laugh right now. “Ronan, you’re just ruining my entire childhood today.”

“I‘m sorry I’ve hurt Parrish, but not you.” Ronan says, and they really sit in silence this time, until they arrive at Adam’s place.

“Sorry.” Gansey tells him, again, and Adam nods and climbs out.

“I’m sorry too.” Ronan tells him from the back, and Adam just nods again.

“See you tomorrow?” Gansey asks, and Adam shrugs.

“Sure, as long as we don’t see anything like that again.” He says, and Gansey agrees. “Bye.”

“Bye.” They echo, and Gansey doesn’t drive away until Adam has disappeared inside and Ronan has climbed to the front seat.

Gansey drives away, and it’s silent in the car. He wants to talk to Ronan so bad, wants to tell him everything in his head, but he’s scared. Scared to tell him that he likes Adam, scared to even say he’s bisexual, and he stays silent, as they drive away, back to the apartment. Back to the silence.

God, this is depressing.

He likes Adam, okay? He likes him, has ever since the day they went to the shop together with Ronan and Adam stood up for him to the woman in line behind them, and he told the woman to stop annoying the cashier or she’d have a problem on her hands, and nobody in the town ever acted like that had even happened.

He likes Adam, and he doesn’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse that the town ignores them when he doesn’t want it to, and focuses all of the attention on him when he wants to simply be alone. He likes Adam, and he doesn’t know if that simple fact is a blessing or a curse, either. For all he knows, it’s a curse, a rut to drive their friendship apart, until they’re simply two boys, who thought they once knew each other but now have no clue who the other person is anymore.

He likes Adam, and he just needs to stop thinking about it.

Ronan climbs out of the car, and he only just registered that he’s parked and they’ve arrived as Ronan starts up the steps and he’s just opened his door. He follows behind for once, and he just collapses onto his mattress as Ronan disappears into his room, and they stay separate, each leaving each other to their own thoughts.

Really, though, Ronan shouldn’t trust him with this. It isn’t his fault, though. Nobody’s except Gansey’s. But, anyways, to get back to his own thoughts.

He likes Adam, and he really should stop thinking about it. Especially since Adam won’t like him back.

He knows this for fact. Adam doesn’t like him back, not like _that_ . Adam only sees him as a friend, nothing more, nothing less. He doesn’t even know if he could be considered a best friend. Just a friend. Not a crush, not someone he loves or likes like _that_. Just a friend.

And really, he’s not bitter. Not sad either. Just, empty. Adam and Ronan were the first people to see past the fact that he has money and see that he’s more than the rich kid persona that he keeps on, the first to actually see him. And when he likes one of them, genuinely likes him, the one doesn’t feel the same way. Typical.

He just doesn’t know how to act, really. He doesn’t even know how to handle this, but he will handle it the way he knows best: burying it deep with all of his feelings and any thought he’s had about Adam until he eventually forgets and moves on with his life. (He’s ignoring the fact that this has never, ever worked and it has always come back up, eventually.)

This is really, _really_ depressing.

He needs to ignore this. In a few weeks, there’s a party, at some dickhead’s house, but he’ll get to distract himself well enough because some kids that he knows will be there are the ones that he can speak to about some things, and he’s been told he can invite someone, and he’ll probably just invite Adam, because that’s the easy option, because the only other option is Ronan, and he doesn’t want to cause a fight.

So. He’ll invite his crush (but the one who he’s trying to ignore all his feelings for) and bring him to a party and it will be only the two of them, and no one else will really have to know why.

Good.

-

It’s awkward.

It’s silent in the car, a new feat. It’s never silent, someone’s always talking, or the radio is playing, or someone is watching something, or just anything. It’s never silent, but today, for once, it is.

Adam sits in the passenger seat, leaned against the seat as far back as he could go, his feet resting on the dash (a dangerous thing, something that nobody else would do, but Adam doesn’t care about anything at this point, he thinks) and his arms leaning against the window.

It's silent, but he doesn’t know if it’s because it's him, or because it’s Adam.

“Are you really okay going to this party?” Gansey asks, glancing over at him as he drives. Adam doesn’t answer, and Gansey really considers turning the car around, but then he speaks, quiet.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

The car turns quiet after that, again, and Gansey doesn’t try to get him to speak again.

And what is there to even talk about, really? He can’t relate to Adam, and Adam can’t relate to him, and really, he doesn’t even know how they became friends, but he needs to stop thinking about this on the way to a party where they need to have some fucking _fun_.

God, is this what it’s like? To be in love with your best friend but never know how to speak, how to talk, how to do anything? Is this what it’s like? Is this how he’s going to be until the end of time, or until he meets someone and they actually like him back? Is this how it’s going to be until he dies, when he won’t have to ever think about Adam ever again? Is this how it’s going to be until they both forget each other?

He doesn’t know.

They arrive, and they don’t speak to each other as they enter, and they don’t speak until Gansey is talking to some guys he barely knows, saying something he doesn’t remember, when he sees Adam walk past him, a look on his face, and he says sorry to the guys and walks as fast as he can to follow Adam up the stairs.

-

“Adam?” Gansey asks, stepping into the bedroom and Adam almost wants to ignore him. He wants to act like he didn’t hear him, like he heard the comment in the living room but this time, it’s his left ear facing Gansey, just to see how he would act, but the comment in the living room pissed him off too bad. So, he turns around, and faces him, staring him dead in the eye.

“What?” He finally says a moment later, when Gansey doesn’t say a word, and just stares at him. It makes him uncomfortable, so he tries to sound like he doesn’t care and he doesn’t feel like that, when he’s most definitely mad at Gansey right now.

“Are you okay?” Gansey says, staring at him, and Adam can’t help but feel like a rat in a science lab, stuck under the microscope and at the mercy of the scientist.

“Oh, sure I am!” He says sarcastically, and he can almost feel the eye roll Gansey wants to do right now, hearing that voice. “Sure, sure. Yeah, I’m _totally_ fine, except for the fact that I feel like I can’t even talk about what I like when I’m around you.”

“What do you mean?” Gansey says, and sure, he sounds confused and concerned, but Adam’s tired, okay? He’s tired of having to act like he isn’t poor, working three jobs just to go to the same school that the others do, tired of having to act like he doesn’t know that he’s going to be stuck in the tiny little town forever, and he doesn’t know why tonight is the night he’s finally expressing any of the feelings he’s held deep inside of himself, but he isn’t stopping them (doesn’t think he could stop them if he tried). “You always talk about what you like around us.” He doesn’t say _me_ , and Adam realizes in that second that the only times he’s ever been alone with Gansey have been when Ronan doesn’t show up to a shared class or when Gansey had picked him up in the mornings. The longest time they’ve been alone with one another and none of their friends around has been the party, with them being together for nearly an hour at this point.

“Here’s the thing, though: that’s what you _think_. You don’t know this for a fact, and you never know anything for a fact, but you’ve convinced yourself that everything you think is true, so that anytime I talk about something I seem interested in, you think that’s my favorite thing in the whole world when in fact, it’s something I barely care about at all. I can only think of one thing that I actually like doing that I’ve told you. I don’t even think you would remember it, because I mentioned it before we even became friends” Adam crosses his arms and leans back against the wall, and he feels warm from the anger. Either that, or because of the fact that it’s a summer night and he’s wearing a hoodie over a t-shirt.

“It’s cars, isn’t it?” Gansey finally says a moment later, and Adam nods, silent. “I thought you liked class, too.”

“Hate it.” He says shortly. Gansey doesn’t say anything to that, and he turns to look out the window, just barely being able to see the bonfire down in the backyard. He can hear the music still playing below, as well as the sounds of a fight happening, and when he focuses enough, he can hear the sounds of their speaking, of them telling each other _I thought we were friends_ and the other going _Not anymore_. Is that going to happen to them?

“Can I know why you’re mad?” Gansey asks a few minutes later, when he’s cooled down some, and Adam shakes his head, crossing his arms again. “How can I make things right when I don’t even know what’s wrong?”

“Well, you’re the rich boy. You should be able to figure out any problem.” He responds, and it’s too late that he realizes how awful that was. He doesn’t want to apologize for it, though, (doesn’t want to apologize to Gansey after that comment) (doesn’t want to tell him his problem and let him treat him like he’s Glendower, trying to figure out a mystery that he never will figure out) so he doesn’t say anything else, but when he glances at the other boy, he has a knowing look on his face.

“Oh. _That_ ’s the problem?” Gansey says, and Adam nods. “I’m sorry about that.”

“About what?” Adam asks, “What are you apologizing for?”

“The fact that I’m rich?” Gansey says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and Adam shakes his head. 

“You can’t apologize for something that you’re not sorry for.” He tells him, and Gansey seems to take offence to that, because he stands up taller, crossing his arms as well.

“Why are you so mad about the fact that I’m rich?” He says, in that voice that seems to only be for Adam, the voice that’s letting Adam know that he wants to know really, really bad, the _Richard Gansey III_ voice, so Adam doesn’t hesitate for more than a couple seconds before speaking (even though he knows he’s falling into the trap, he doesn’t care at this point).

“It’s the fact that you almost flaunt it, Gansey. It’s not the fact that you’re rich. I’m okay with that. It’s the fact that you act like having this much money is normal. It’s the fact that you always have brand new clothes, and none of your clothes ever seem to be old or torn. Except for about three things, I’ve never seen you own something that wasn’t new and never used. It’s the fact that you are just new. You aren’t someone who doesn’t have to fight for anything. You can just say a name or show some money and you’re in. It’s the fact that you can get a helicopter just like that, and you act like that’s the most normal thing in the entire world, when I only got a car because your sister acted like I was a charity case and gave it to me. I’m not mad about the fact that you’re rich, Gansey. It’s the fact that you don’t have a single care in the world of what I can get when you go and send me out to buy things that also makes me mad, Gansey, because you know how much I’ve struggled and you still tell me how you can just go and get new equipment like it’s the easiest thing in the world.”

He pauses for a moment, and Gansey tries to speak, tries to tell him that he’s wrong, but Adam raises a finger, and Gansey stops.

“It’s the fact that you try to act like you aren’t rich, while getting texts about coming to D.C. the next time you can, that makes me mad. Not you. Not that you’re rich. Just the fact that you have more money than I could ever hope of having and you try to make it seem like it’s normal and not unexpected when it _is_. I could go on and on about the things that you try to say are normal when I’ve never experienced those things, but I’ll stop, for now. I’ll scream and shout if I don’t.”

Gansey tries to speak, tries to open his mouth, except Adam finds he still has words left to say, so he snaps at Gansey, nearly, right as the boy says “Adam-”

“ _I won’t take your pity_.” He nearly shoves past Gansey, wanting to slam the door behind him, but it’s not his house, so he just closes it behind him as he goes down the stairs. The part downstairs is still going on, and he doesn’t know why he hasn’t left yet, but when he tries to get to the front door, everything goes wrong.

“Hey, Adam!” Cam yells from the kitchen, and when he clenches his fist and turns around to face him, it doesn’t go unnoticed. “Oh, shit, wrong time? You’re angry after having a little fight with your lover, I bet! You really should listen to me, since I should be the best to help you because I know the feeling of wanting to punch your partner. In fact, I haven’t held back a few times!” He laughs at this, his buddies who have joined them laughing as well, and Adam isn’t a violent person, far from it, but he can’t help but feel like wanting to punch Cam.

“No, thank you.” He says instead of expressing his thoughts, gritting his teeth and speaking through them, but when he tries to step through to reach the door, one of the boys, Abe, he thinks, steps in front of him and blocks the way out. “Let me through. Now.”

“No, no, no, Adam, we need to treat our guests right, don’t we? We can’t let you leave without having at least a little fun!” Cam says, and Adam just looks at him instead of responding. “Liam, why don’t you go get a drink for this fine fellow?”

“No, I don’t drink.” Adam says before the boy can move, but the boy continues into the kitchen, back the way they had all come. Adam squints at Cam, head tilting slightly. “What do you want with me, Cam? I know you don’t like me.”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing really, but I just want a question answered, and that’s it. Really, that’s all!” Cam says, but it’s not in the _‘I have a simple question that needs to be answered’_ voice, it’s his usual _‘I’m gonna ask you a question that you’re gonna hate’_ voice. “Do you mind?”

 _Yeah, of course_ Adam’s mind says, but instead he goes, “No.”

“How did you manage to make Richard Gansey be your friend? I mean, I’ve tried to friend him before, and he just straight up said no. But with you, I assume it had to do with some mix of pity and sympathy for the poor boy, because I don’t think anyone like him would be friends with you for free.” Cam says, and Adam shakes his head, clenching a fist.

“I’m not starting this with you. Not now, not ever.” He tells him, not wanting to end this night on this note, and Liam returns with the drink at that moment, holding it carefully, but before anyone could know what was going on, Cam has grabbed the drink out of his hand and thrown it straight in Adam’s face. A punch follows after (he doesn’t know who it was from), and the room erupts into noise. 

Adam doesn’t want to do this, but he swings back, (tries to swing back), and nearly misses one of the boys, but he doesn’t (he makes sure he doesn’t), and the boy lets go. His hair gets grabbed, and he yanks out of the grip, leaving at least a little bit of his hair in the grip, and he can hear the sound of Cam cursing him out above the noise, so he looks around, trying to find him. When he does though, he only gets to see his face for a second before it’s shoved by Gansey’s hands, pushing them down into the ground. Hands come out, some not even Cam’s, punching Gansey in the face and trying to hurt him the best they can.

That’s his cue to leave, and the noise is nearly cancelled out by the sound of the door slamming open. The night is nearly silent, but now it isn’t anymore, the sounds of the yelling and crashing coming out through the open door, and he can’t get away in his car fast enough, leaving Gansey and the entire party behind to escape.

-

Gansey can’t find Adam. At all.

The blood has dried on his arms, and he can feel the bruises that will be forming from Cam soon enough, but he doesn’t care about that right now. All he can think of is that he needs to know where Adam is, and if he’s safe.

He’s already called everyone that would normally know where he is (and called everyone who wouldn’t normally know) and nobody else knows. However, even though nobody knows where he is, and nobody has answers, Gansey hasn’t stopped driving since he got out, only stopping from looking once for gas.

He’s already checked his own place, Adam’s place, 300 Fox Way, and every other place he can think of. He’s checked the school, checked the lake that they visit, checked a stream he heard Adam mention once, and Adam is at none of them. He’s nearly panicking, but he doesn’t want Adam to see him panicking (doesn’t want to be panicking so bad that he can’t apologize to Adam) so he keeps calm and just drives.

He’s returning back to check further down the road from Adam’s apartment when a car catches his eye. It’s Adam’s car, specifically, parking in front of his place, and Gansey pulls into that parking lot and just sits for a moment with shaking hands and a mind whirling with apologies before he attempts to even knock. And he doesn’t even get to knock, because he just puts his hands back down and sits against the wall beside the door, not letting himself speak to Adam in this moment.

He doesn’t even know _what_ he would say. _Sorry for invalidating you and being rude about the fact that you’re poor?_ That’s not right. _I’m sorry I made you feel bad about being poor?_ No, that’s a horrible thing to even _think_. God, he doesn’t even know what to say, or even think. And that’s the problem, isn't it? If he can’t even think of or even know how to apologize to Adam, he isn’t a good friend, at all.

Because here’s the truth: if you don’t know how to apologize, if you can’t even apologize to a friend, you’re not a good friend. And he just can’t think of how to word the sentence, of how to make it sound right instead of wrong, of how to make it sound the best that it can be, and he doesn't like that fact at _all_. If he can’t even apologize to his best friend, how can he apologize to people who he doesn’t even know?

God, he’s stupid. This is a fact, one he knows for certain. He’s stupid, and he’s dumb, and he shouldn’t have ever said something about how easily he can get something. At this point, he doesn’t care what happens, so he pulls his knees up to his chest and buries his head in his arms. He doesn’t care who or what finds him like this. He just wants Adam to come out so that he can fix anything and everything he’s said.

Last time Gansey checked, it was past 10 pm, but that was over a hour ago, and it might be midnight now for all he knows. That just means he’s been panicking for him since then, trying to think of an apology and coming up blank. The time’s messed up, and he doesn’t know what to even say, so he just buries his head in his arms harder and tries to forget everything right now.

Except, he wakes up to the feeling of being carried and the sound of music playing softly throughout the room as he’s set down on a couch, and it's slightly shocking. And it shouldn’t be a shocking feeling, really. This is what he should’ve expected (should’ve known) from Adam Parrish. Unable to even leave out the boy who he has called his best friend for over a year outside of his door.

“Sorry.” He manages after a moment, after Adam’s already left the room, after he’s managed to make his mouth work and go along with his brain (after he’s managed to come up with at least one apology, for now).

Adam doesn’t seem to hear him, but his eyes widen for a fraction of a second when he comes back in the room with two cups of water, seeing Gansey slightly pulling himself up on the couch. “Oh, you’re awake.”

“Sorry.” Gansey says, again, and this time Adam hears him.

“You’re fine.” Adam tells him, and Gansey knows that isn’t true, but Adam doesn’t seem like he wants to talk about this topic right now, so he doesn’t say anything else about it. “Do you want coffee?”

“If you don’t mind.” Gansey says, excusing himself to the bathroom before he can forget. When he returns a few minutes later, glasses on his face and his contacts in their place, Adam has the coffee mug placed on the table, drinking a cup of water for himself. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Adam says, and they settle into a comfortable silence, bordering on uncomfortable, and Gansey just thinks as he sips, trying. Trying to do that is the golden question, but if you asked him, he’d just say _I don’t know_ , because Gansey truly doesn’t ever know what is going on inside his head. 

But, he thinks that he’s thinking about ways to apologize to Adam, because that’s the main thing that’s happened today, their argument, the one where he was clearly in the wrong, but where he couldn’t help but keep going. It’s horrible, but even though his heart was telling him this was wrong, his brain just wanted _more_ , to argue for as long as they could. And he felt horrible the moment Adam left, felt even worse the moment he heard the shouts come from downstairs,and felt the worse that night when he realized that Adam had left just so he wouldn’t have to see his face. And he shouldn’t feel bad about that, because it’s a natural reaction to fighting, but because it’s Adam, it felt worse. With Adam, everything seems to be amplified, and he couldn’t tell if that’s a good thing or not.

And it should be, right? It should, usually, because when he sees Adam smile for the first time in a week, or hears his laugh for the first time since something happened, he realizes he would kill for that to stay on his face or for the sound to stay in the air, no matter what. And when they’re just having fun, being dumbasses and forgetting all the responsibilities that they have, if only for a few moments, he realizes that he feels more with Adam, feels better, and he knows he wouldn’t leave this for the world.

A hand comes in front of him, a first aid kit in it, and he gets out of his thoughts and moves the coffee cup down as he follows the arm up to Adam’s face, a concerned look on it. He’s confused, for a second, but his eyes find the ice pack in Adam’s other hand, and he remembers the fact that he got involved at the fight at the party, and the fact that there’s most definitely a bruise forming on his face and at least two cuts across it.

“Sorry.” Gansey says again, and Adam doesn’t respond to that this time. Instead, he kneels on the floor in front of the couch, still staying tall enough to stay at his eye level.

His hands are gentle as he pushes Gansey’s hair back, taking his glasses off, and Gansey finds his eyes closing as Adam presses the ice pack against the side of his face, taking one of Gansey’s hands and pressing it against it. He holds it to his face and lets Adam fix the rest, wiping away the dried blood and drying the area. They’re quiet, not saying a word, and when Adam finishes cleaning his face, he pulls away, but not far enough that he isn’t touching Gansey.

“You alright?” Adam asks, finally, and Gansey nearly nods before he remembers that he doesn’t want to dislodge the hand on him, so he just says _yes_ and keeps his eyes shut. The light has become a tiny bit too bright, and it feels better seeing the darkness than anything else. “Truly?”

“My head does hurt a bit, and the light isn’t really helping.” He says, not wanting to lie to Adam. He can feel Adam get up, but he trusts him to come back, and soon enough he feels Adam back in front of him.

“The lights are off.” He says softly, and Gansey opens his eyes.

It’s dark in Adam’s apartment, darker than he’s seen it before. It’s a sharp contrast from how it looked only minutes before, and he can barely even remember how it looked now. The windows were opened by Adam, and a slight breeze is coming through, with moonlight streaming through the windows to illuminate the room. It’s illuminating the pieces that Adam’s hung up on the wall, showing what Adam has bought and earned, and it’s nearly shining on Adam, _shining on the most important thing_ , Gansey thinks. It’s nice, calming, and it’s helping Gansey distract himself from thoughts of how Adam looks in the moonlight right now.

It’s helping him remember that he’s done this for Adam before. Not the darkening of the room part, necessarily (but he has done that once, when asked), but the patching up of the face and the cleaning of the wounds. He did that the second to last time that Adam called him from the corner of a street, going out when it was 1 in the morning, parking by and letting Adam in before bringing him to a random parking lot. He had gotten out for a moment, only to get the first aid kit, and got back in as quickly, and by the light of the streetlamp on the edge of the lot, he cleaned and bandaged all his wounds. They hadn’t talked about that again, nor all the other times, but he thought that Adam must remember them too.

He doesn’t know, though, so he doesn’t say a word.

“Thank you.” Gansey says, for the second time that night.

“Of course.” Adam replies, for the first time that night.

They sit in silence, comfortable again, and Adam doesn’t say a word when he takes the pack from Gansey’s face, returning after a couple moments with a fresh one from the freezer. Gansey thanks him quietly, again, and by the time it’s ready to be switched out again, he’s thought of everything he wants to say, and everything else.

Adam starts to get up, pushes his shoes under the couch as he pulls up, hand out to grab the pack, but Gansey doesn’t hand it to him, and looks at him instead. Adam’s eyes searched his face, and he must have found an answer, because he moved back into his previous position, kneeling in front of Gansey, staying at the same height as him.

Gansey adjusted the pack on his face, pushing it up higher. “I just want to tell you this before I can tell myself that I don’t need to or that it isn’t needed anymore, so if you will let me, I’d like to say my apology, and if you don’t want it, then tell me, and I’ll shut up.”

He sits, eyesight still blurry from being without his glasses, waiting for an answer. He doesn’t want to speak too much, doesn’t want to ruin their friendship, so he closes his mouth, waiting for the magic words.

Except, it’s silent, except for the sound of the wind rustling through the apartment and knocking over a few papers, and Gansey is afraid. Is that even the right word? Worried might be more appropriate, but he’s also afraid that if he doesn’t get to apologize, this will be the end of the friendship as he knows it. So, worried is right, but afraid is even better. Besides, he can’t see Adam’s facial expressions, and he doesn’t know what’s going through his mind.

And that’s a worry, isn’t it? If he can’t see Adam’s face, he can’t see every decision in his eyes, in the way he moves his face, in anything. He can’t get any clues to help him know what he’s going to say, or do, and that’s worrisome. He can’t see Adam’s face, and that worries him most of all. If he can’t see Adam, then how can he do this?

He stays quiet, though, waiting. That’s all he can do. That’s not all he wants to do, but without the aid of glasses, he’s nearly helpless. He can’t speak without being asked to, and he doesn’t know if that will help or hurt him.

He doesn’t want to hurt, Adam, either. That’s the opposite of what he wants to do. He doesn’t want to hurt Adam, he wants to keep him from being hurt. He wants to keep him safe, he wants to keep him from ever being injured, but he knows that he can’t always do this. Why is he thinking about this, anyways? He won’t ever be able to do this (especially because of what happened tonight, especially because Adam probably doesn’t ever want to speak to him again), so he doesn’t know why he keeps thinking about this. He should just think that he knows that he doesn’t want to have Adam get hurt because of him ever again, and that be that.

“What do you want to say?” Adam finally speaks, finally asks, and Gansey wants to tell him the apology as fast as he can, but he needs to know if he even can.

“I want to say my apology. For tonight.” He says, almost quietly, but not quite there.

Adam’s silent, for a moment, and Gansey worries he’s gonna get kicked out and be forced to go back to his place without anything from Adam, but Adam sighs and gives a gesture that tells him to go on.

“I’m sorry. Not just for tonight, but for anything I've ever said or done that’s hurt you or belittled you or made you feel like you weren’t important, or needed anything to prove your worth. You’re the most important person I know, which is more than enough for anything. I don’t want to make you feel sad or mad or anything that isn’t happy or calm, and I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for any pain I've caused you, and I’m sorry for any pain from tonight. I’m sorry if you got hurt, I’m sorry Cam messed with you, and I’m sorry anything like that even happened. I’m glad you’re safe and unhurt, and I’m sorry I have to say that in the first place. I’m sorry that I’m the reason that you even had to go down there, and face Cam alone. I’m sorry for anything and everything that happened to you tonight.

“Most importantly, I wanna apologize for being a dick. There’s no lying about that, and I can’t tell you anything else but that. I was a dick tonight. I made you angry enough that I saw you holding yourself back, and that’s not something friends should make other friends do. That’s not something _anyone_ should make anyone do. I’m sorry for making you angry, and I’m sorry I put you down, in a way that I don’t know how, but I won’t do it again. I’m sorry that I did a voice to you, I’m sorry I talked down to you in a way that only you would know, I’m sorry I did anything to hurt you, and I’m sorry for anything else that may have hurt you or caused you harm. I’m sorry that I hurt you, specifically. I don’t want to hurt you, because you’re my best friend, and I care for you, deeply. I shouldn’t have argued, I shouldn’t have gotten mad, I shouldn’t have tried to interrupt you, I shouldn’t have done anything that I did. I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you, but I was in shock from what happened, and I just wanted to tell you sorry again. I’m sorry I tried to interrupt, I’m sorry for being rude, I’m sorry again for taking too long before anything happened downstairs, I’m sorry for anything that happened to you. I know I keep saying that and every variation of it when I apologize, but I truly am sorry, because I don’t like to see you hurt, in pain, mad, sad, or anything else along those lines. I’ve already said it, but I just want to see you happy, plain and simple.

“I’m sorry for not helping you as much as I could, I’m sorry for taking too long to do anything, I’m sorry for making you carry me inside and treat me with care that I don't deserve, but I’m sorry for everything that happened tonight. I’m sorry, sorry, and those are all I can say, but I won’t care if you push me out on the curb for what I did to hurt you. So, accept my apology if you want, but you decline as hard as you want and tell me to book it.” Gansey finishes, closing his eyes and tilting his head down the best he can on the couch, laying down the way he is. 

He’s scared to see Adam’s face, scared to see whatever emotions will be on them. Disgust? Anger? Sadness? Will Adam be mad at him for making a whole speech, mad at him for apologizing even though he could’ve (should’ve) done better? Will Adam be disgusted at the fact that he’s sorry? Will he be sad that Gansey even wanted to make him feel better? Will he think that Gansey tried to make it all about himself, when that’s so far from the truth? He’s worried, and he’s scared, about so many things, about how Adam will act and what he will say if he speaks, that he nearly misses Adam’s breath that comes out, and he doesn’t know if it’s a sigh or something else.

He doesn’t look up, but he feels arms wrap around himself, pulling him in close, and he doesn’t open his eyes, but instead wraps his arms around Adam and holds back. Nobody is speaking in the silence of the apartment, but the action of this hug speaks louder than the words ever could. And they stay like that, in the darkness, Adam leaning to hug him, and it isn’t until a few moments later when Adam finally pulls away. Gansey doesn’t say anything, and he’s too worried of ruining this, but Adam speaks, before Gansey can even think of anything he would say if he _had_ to speak.

“Can I say sorry too?” He asks, laughing slightly at the end, and Gansey wants to laugh too, only because he did, but he doesn’t know what Adam has to apologize for. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for what you said-”

“You had every right to!” Gansey says, quickly, before Adam can go on thinking he had no right to act the way he did. Adam cocks an eyebrow at that for a second, but nods and continues speaking.

“I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for what you said, because I should’ve just waited and talked to you about it. I shouldn’t have gotten mad, because I lashed out at you instead of doing the rational thing of waiting to talk. I just got mad and didn’t even attempt to listen to you. I should’ve tried to listen to you, but my anger just came over me and just. I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.” Adam finishes, looking at Gansey, and he looks right back.

Gently, hesitantly, Gansey grabs Adam’s hand, and he holds it, trying to give him some comfort. He hopes that Adam won’t figure out that he likes him from this tiny touch, but at this point, he doesn’t care anymore. He just wants Adam to know that he’s alright, that he isn't mad, and that he deserved everything that was yelled at him.

And they stay like that for a moment, before Gansey breaks the silence with a question. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” Adam replies, and Gansey continues.

“What did you hear me say? I can’t think of anything that I said that would’ve made you react the way I did, and I’m just trying to figure this out. If you don’t wanna tell me, I understand.” He waits, wondering which answer Adam will give him.

“No, it’s okay, I can tell you.” Adam smiles, swallowing before he continues. “I went into the kitchen to grab a water, and you were standing right beside it, talking to some dudes that I don’t know the names of, and you were talking before I got there, but all I heard was you go, ‘Yeah, I can buy anything I want at _any_ time!’ and it just made me really mad because, y’know,” Gansey nodded at this, “and so that’s why I walked past you and the group and went up to one of the rooms, and then you followed, and we both know what happened after that.”

“Oh.” Is all Gansey says in response to that, because, oh. _That_ ’s what he heard. “This is all a huge misunderstanding.”

“What?” Adam says, staring at Gansey.

“You didn’t hear what happened _before_ that. If you hadn't gone to the bathroom, and went to the kitchen earlier, then you would’ve heard that we started talking about the most entitled people that we’ve met. They spoke, and then I started to tell them about how I went to the grocery the other day, and there was some kid who was in line behind me, trying to bribe me. He wouldn’t shut up about how rich he was, and how he could pay me to let him in front of me, and I told him that I don’t think he could buy anything, and he told me, ‘Yeah, I can buy anything I want at _any_ time!’, and I was telling them that sentence when you got your water, I guess, so that’s all you heard. And I guess I didn’t make as good of a voice for him as I thought, since you thought it was just me saying it. But I had started to say how stupid the kid was when you went past, and I was concerned for you, so I followed, and now we’re here.”

Adam stays silent, staring at Gansey, and he doesn’t know if it’s in shock or something else. But, Adam stares, and he waits, wondering when he’ll speak.

“I hate you.” Adam says, but it’s in the special way that only Gansey ever hears, the voice specifically for him.

He just smiles and tells him, “I know.”

Half an hour later, they’ve moved places, watching a movie on Gansey’s phone together, with the time nearing 2 in the morning, when Adam speaks again, breaking their comfortable silence.

“Do you wanna to stay the night?” He asks, voice sounding tired, his accent slipping out a little bit on the word ‘wanna’.

Gansey pauses the movie, and looks at him, nodding. “Sure.” He says, just in case Adam didn’t hear him.

“Okay.” Adam says, and they move back into watching the movie. And it’s quiet, for a bit, until Adam falls asleep on top of Gansey, leaning on his shoulder and resting his head on his chest, and Gansey curses quietly as he gets out from underneath him and pauses the movie before he picks him up. He carries him to his room, and pulls his blankets up over his body, until Adam looks comfortable, and he retreats back into the living room, and lies on the couch with a thin blanket, and falls asleep watching the second Pirates of the Carribean movie. And when Adam discovers him in the morning, as he’s going to his kitchen to make some coffee, he doesn’t say anything, only adjusts Gansey’s blanket and pulls his glasses off of his face and puts them on the table.

It’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> that was a mess im sorry  
> neways im @willstreaty on tumblr but within the next month ill probably be @adamparrrish oops


End file.
